BY STEVE ROTHAUS

It's a Catch 22 for a lesbian who wants to get married to her new partner.

Heather Brassner's spouse cheated on her four years ago and then disappeared, she said. Now, Brassner is legally stuck in a 2002 Vermont civil union because Florida is constitutionally banned from recognizing the women’s relationship, and therefore won't grant her a divorce.

A Broward circuit judge may soon fix that by becoming the third in South Florida to declare Florida's 2008 gay-marriage ban unconstitutional.

“A judge’s job is to protect the citizens. The way the law is written, they’re not allowed to do their job,” said Brassner, a Lake Worth art dealer. “My hope is that I will be granted a divorce. My assumption is that most likely the attorney general of Florida will appeal it. I’m willing to go to the next step. I’ll go all the way. I just want the same protections that everyone is born with. These are inalienable rights.”

“I have known Heather for a few years, through her [current] girlfriend, Jennifer. It was probably about two years ago when she first mentioned trying to get divorced,” Brodzki said. “She wondered if she could. ‘Can I get divorced?’ And the answer was, ‘No, you really can’t.’”

Brassner and her first partner, Megan Lade, had a civil union on July 6, 2002, in Vermont. That was two years before the first gay and lesbian couples in the United States were allowed to marry in Massachusetts, and seven years before gay marriage became legal in Vermont.

Vermont will not end Brassner and Lade’s civil union unless both women sign papers that they agree to the dissolution. Brassner, 41, said that’s impossible because she has no idea where Lade is. “In this case, despite diligent search, the Petitioner was unable to locate Megan Lade,” according to a divorce filing. “Even a private investigator hired to find her was unable to do so.”

The gay-marriage battle is being waged across the nation. A federal judge last week ruled Colorado’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. And on Monday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Virginia’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, a decision that could topple similar prohibitions in the Carolinas and West Virginia.

Late Monday afternoon, North Carolina’s attorney general announced his office will no longer fight lawsuits seeking to overturn the state's ban, according to the national advocacy group, Freedom to Marry.

In 2008, about 62 percent of Florida voters supported a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage and civil unions in the Sunshine State: “Inasmuch as marriage is the legal union of only one man and one woman as husband and wife, no other legal union that is treated as marriage or the substantial equivalent thereof shall be valid or recognized.”

Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi is continuing to fight two right-to-marry victories in July by same-sex couples in both Monroe and Miami-Dade counties.

On July 17, Monroe Chief Circuit Judge Luis Garcia ruled Florida’s gay-marriage ban unconstitutional and that Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones of Key West can marry. Eight days later, Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel ruled that six same-sex couples in South Florida also had the right to marry. Those decisions are only valid in the judges’ respective counties and both rulings have been stayed pending appeals by Bondi.

Wednesday afternoon, lawyers in Monroe and Miami-Dade counties asked that their two cases be consolidated and appealed directly to Florida’s Supreme Court. A spokeswoman for Bondi said the attorney general’s office has yet to respond.

In addition to the two right-to-marry cases, several state and federal lawsuits have been filed by same-sex couples demanding Florida recognize their out-of-state marriages. Those cases are unresolved.

Brodzki expects Cohen will become the first judge in Florida to recognize an out-of-state marriage or civil union.

“Judge Cohen stated that he was not prepared to grant the divorce without addressing the constitutionality of the same-sex marriage ban — and the same-sex marriage recognition ban,” Brodzki said. “He asked me to file a motion for declaratory judgment so that he could rule on the constitutionality of the ban.”

Brodzki said that on Monday, Cohen told her Brassner needn’t be in court when he releases his decision “because I’m going to issue a stay to give the attorney general a chance to appeal, if I rule in your favor.”

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

Pushing for a decision that would topple Florida’s gay-marriage ban in all 67 counties, lawyers for two Monroe County men who won the right to marry asked an appeals court Monday to move the case directly to state's Supreme Court.

“The constitutionality of Florida's laws barring same-sex couples from marriage is an issue of great public importance that has a great effect on the proper administration of justice throughout the state,” lawyers Bernadette Restivo and Elena Vigil-Fariñas, who represent Key West bartenders Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones, wrote to the Miami-based Third District Court of Appeal. “There is a need to bring finality to this issue on a statewide basis so that clerks of court throughout the state have uniform guidance as to whether they must issue marriage licenses on an equal basis to otherwise qualified same-sex couples.”

According to the attorneys, “a decision from the Supreme Court would also provide uniform direction and guidance to government, public and private entities throughout the state, including the judiciary, which make decisions on a daily basis with regard to the provision of benefits or rights to persons based in whole or in part on their marital status.”

The lawyers describe the case as “an issue of great public importance that directly and profoundly affects same-sex couples throughout the state, as well as their children and other family members, by excluding them from a right the Supreme Court has declared to be ‘of fundamental importance for all individuals.’”

The appeals court gave Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi, whose office has appealed the men’s legal victory, 10 days to respond.

On July 17, Monroe Chief Circuit Judge Luis Garcia declared Florida's 2008 gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, ruling against Bondi, whose office defended the ban. Huntsman and Jones have not been allowed to marry: Florida law mandates that an automatic stay pending appeal is triggered when a public official loses a court case.

The Monroe County case mirrors one in Miami-Dade, in which Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel on Friday ordered that six same-sex couples also be allowed to marry, but stayed her ruling pending appeal.

Preventing same-sex couples from marrying, Zabel said, “serves only to hurt, to discriminate, to deprive same-sex couples and their families of equal dignity, to label and treat them as second-class citizens, and to deem them unworthy of participation in one of the fundamental institutions of our society.”

The gay-marriage battle is being waged across the nation. Currently, gay marriage is legal in 19 states and Washington, D.C.

A federal judge last week ruled Colorado’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. And on Monday, a federal appeals court upheld a lower court’s ruling that Virginia’s ban on gay marriage is unconstitutional, a decision that could topple similar prohibitions in the Carolinas and West Virginia.

Late Monday afternoon, North Carolina’s attorney general announced his office will no longer fight lawsuits seeking to overturn the state's ban, according to the national advocacy group, Freedom to Marry.

“Attorney General Roy Cooper is the ninth state attorney general across the country who has refused to defend a state marriage ban,” Freedom to Marry Executive Director Evan Wolfson said in a news release. “Cooper's decision follows similar moves from the attorneys general in California, New Mexico, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Virginia, Oregon, and Kentucky. Each of these attorneys general refused to defend anti-marriage laws in their states, declaring them unconstitutional and indefensible, as have nearly 30 consecutive rulings in state and federal courts across the country.”

According to Freedom to Marry, LGBT advocates have won more than 25 times in federal, state and appellate courts since June 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Edith Windsor, a lesbian widow, and threw out a key portion of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

The U.S. Supreme Court has not ruled on the constitutionality of state marriage bans.

It is likely that the Monroe and Miami-Dade cases will be appealed together and that whatever decision is reached by the appeals court will affect both.

“Florida's same-sex couples have waited long enough for marriage equality so, while we respect whatever decision is made by the Third District Court of Appeal with regard to certification of this pressing matter, we do hope to proceed directly to the Florida Supreme Court,” said Elizabeth Schwartz, a Miami Beach attorney helping represent the six same-sex couples and Equality Florida Institute in the Miami-Dade suit. “Our team is working very closely with the Monroe County case's counsel, coordinating strategies and providing drafting support. I'm confident that together our cases will serve to be another nail in the coffin of these bigoted marriage bans.”

Restivo said whichever side might lose at the Florida Supreme Court could then “petition the United States Supreme Court to take the case.”

“Our conference is scheduled for October, but we need people to register now,” Robertson says.

According to the website: “The Ujima Men's Collective was formed to create a collective of Black same gender loving men and those that love and work with them to meet, educate and build a strong network where they live to address issues of equality, enlightenment for our greater community, safety and health concerns in their community.”

Robertson has provided details of the conference:

The Ujima Men’s Collective will hold its annual conference at the Westin Hotel Fort Lauderdale, October 24-26, 2014. The conference theme is Dare 2B AWARE, and keynote speaker Phill Wilson (CEO, Black AIDS Institute) will address delegates and lead discussion on the importance of genuine social equality, enlightenment for our greater community and health and HIV concerns in the Black same gender loving (SGL) community. Filmmaker Amir Dixon will screen his award-winning documentary, Friend of Essex at the conference and entertain a Q and A with conference attendees.

The Ujima Men’s Collective believes that personal responsibility is simply a moral choice. In addition, The Ujima Men's Collective conference comes at a critical time when more Black same gender loving men are plagued with challenges of health issues, bullying, homophobia and self-hatred.

During the past ten years, the Ujima Men’s collective initiated a number of sustainability initiatives, and committed to a prominent campaign to build a network of Black SGL men. These men are dedicated to making strides in areas of leadership, advocacy, spirituality, relationships and health & wellness.

Alongside the keynote addresses, delegates to the conference will also have access to a range of workshops on leadership, advocacy, spirituality, relationships and health & wellness. This is an initiative of Ujima Men’s Collective Conference Coordinator Lorenzo Robertson, who believes Black SGL men and their supporters should have the opportunity education, empowerment and encouragement in a non-threatening environment. Contact us, if you are interested in facilitating a workshop.

"Learning techniques and applying them to your personal life can create significant changes for Black same gender loving men and their supporters; and the conference will give many a unique opportunity to learn from other Black same gender loving men," he says.

"This is something I believe that the conference is an exceptional occasion for Black same gender loving men learn and grow, and I am proud that Ujima Men’s Collective is taking a determined lead to address the issues concerning Black same gender loving men."

The Ujima Men’s Collective Conference, Dare 2B AWARE will be held at the Westin Hotel, Fort Lauderdale, Friday-Sunday, October 24-26, 2014. We will have a keynote address and discussion by Phill Wilson. Register early for attendance and/or facilitating a workshop, log onto www.ujimamen.com.

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

A Miami-Dade judge declared Florida’s gay-marriage ban unconstitutional on Friday, in a sweeping ruling that cut a wide swath through American history — from the Declaration of Independence to slavery to Jim Crow to equality for women — as much as it drew from recent Supreme Court decisions.

Preventing same-sex couples from marrying, Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel said, “serves only to hurt, to discriminate, to deprive same-sex couples and their families of equal dignity, to label and treat them as second-class citizens, and to deem them unworthy of participation in one of the fundamental institutions of our society.”

Zabel became the second South Florida judge in eight days to declare that Florida’s constitutional amendment banning gay marriage violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection and due process clauses.

Last week, a Keys judge also ruled the ban unconstitutional. That ruling was stayed when the state attorney general’s office appealed, and Zabel stayed her own order Friday pending an appeal, saying she understood her decision would not be the “final word” on the issue.

In the Miami case, six same-sex couples in January sued Miami-Dade County Clerk Harvey Ruvin for marriage licenses.

“I’m excited. I’m thrilled. My phone has blown up with text and emails of congratulations. I’m elated,” one of the plaintiffs, Jorge Isaias Diaz, said Friday evening. “We came into this knowing it probably would go the long haul. We’re confident justice will prevail and we will go as far as we need to go.”

Diaz and his partner, Don Price Johnston, of Miami, sued, along with Catherina Pareto and Karla Arguello of Coconut Grove; Dr. Juan Carlos Rodriguez and David Price of Davie; Vanessa and Melanie Alenier of Hollywood; Todd and Jeff Delmay of Hollywood, and Summer Greene and Pamela Faerber of Plantation.

Equality Florida Institute, a statewide gay-rights group, also is a plaintiff in the case.

“It’s a beautiful opinion,” Equality Florida Executive Director Nadine Smith said. The judge “states so clearly and so powerfully that marriage is a fundamental right and that denial is a violation of our constitutional rights and our dignity.”

Among other landmark Supreme Court cases, Zabel cited Loving v. Virginia, the 1967 case in which the court threw out all state prohibitions against interracial marriage.

“We’ve said all along that the Loving case is parallel to our case,” Price said. “It just shows that discrimination against any class of people is nothing more and nothing less than discrimination. The U.S. society has no stomach for discriminating against anyone.”

In 2008, about 62 percent of Florida voters voted to amend the Florida Constitution and define marriage as between one man and one woman. The attorney general’s defense in the case cited the vote and said the judge should respect the will of the state’s voters.

But Zabel said fundamental constitutional rights are not subject to majority approval. “A state’s constitution cannot insulate a law that otherwise violates the U.S. Constitution,” she wrote. “The United States Constitution would be meaningless if its principles were not shielded from the will of the majority.”

John Stemberger, who led the 2008 campaign to amend the state constitution, was vehemently critical of Zabel’s decision, especially her reference to the Supreme Court case on interracial marriage.

“Wow,” said Stemberger, president and general counsel of the conservative Florida Family Policy Council in Orlando. “Race and ethnicity are not an inherent property of marriage. Gender, however, isan inherent property of marriage. This is why her reliance on Loving is misplaced. Loving in essence said any man can marry any woman irrespective of race and ethnicity.”

The gay-marriage battle is being waged across the nation. A federal judge this week ruled Colorado’s same-sex marriage ban unconstitutional. According to the group Freedom to Marry, LGBT advocates have won more than 20 times in federal, state and appellate courts since June 2013, when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Edith Windsor, a lesbian widow, and threw out a key portion of the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act.

Zabel referred to the growing number of decisions overthrowing gay-marriage bans in the aftermath of the Windsor decision.

“As case after case has come out, unified in their well-reasoned constitutional condemnation of the deprivation of one class of person’s right to marry, the answer to the question of whether it is constitutionally permissible to deprive same-sex couples of the right to marry has become increasingly obvious: Of course it is not,” the judge wrote.

Anthony Verdugo, president of the conservative Christian Family Coalition, called Zabel’s ruling “corrupt” and “simply illegitimate.”

“It goes against Windsor because Windsor says the states have the right to regulate marital relations,” Verdugo said. “It goes against that precedent. She has inserted herself into that federal document to overthrow eight million votes. Voter rights is a fundamental freedom. She has overthrown and violated voter rights.”

But Elizabeth Schwartz, a Miami Beach lawyer for the six Miami-Dade couples, said Zabel’s ruling “makes it crystal clear why the Florida marriage bans are unconstitutional.”

“Judge Zabel considered, enumerated and rejected the meritless arguments of the anti-equality forces,” Schwartz said. “We’re anxious to move forward to appeal on the strength of this soaring order.”

The Miami-Dade case mirrors the lawsuit in Monroe County, in which two Key West men, Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones, successfully sued County Clerk Amy Heavilin in April for a marriage license, saying Florida’s ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.

After Monroe Chief Circuit Judge Luis Garcia ruled in favor of Huntsman and Jones, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly announced she would appeal. Her office issued a statement saying that “with many similar cases pending throughout the entire country, finality on this constitutional issue must come from the U.S. Supreme Court.”

By filing the appeal notice, Bondi triggered the automatic stay in the case.

This week, lawyers for Huntsman and Jones asked Garcia to lift the stay. He declined, as did Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, which now has the case.

A separate lawsuit is pending in Tallahassee federal court seeking to overturn the state’s gay marriage ban and force the state to recognize same-sex marriages performed in other states.

In her ruling’s conclusion, Zabel touched on the history of “inalienable rights” stemming from the Declaration of Independence, and how the interpretation of those rights has evolved through slavery, women's rights and longtime discrimination against Native Americans.

“Notably absent from this protracted march towards social justice was any progress for the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community until quite recently,” Zabel wrote. “However, as evidenced by the avalanche of court decisions unanimously favoring marriage equality, the dam that was denying justice on this front has been broken.”

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

This year’s 30th-anniversary White Party seeks to return to its white roots: Lots of glamour and no torn shorts or T-shirts.

“Oh, no! I want this to be the highest level of formal wear so they can show their elegance,” said Jonathan Welsh, marketing and development manager of Care Resource, the agency that presents and benefits from the annual fundraiser. “A fantastic world of white.”

White Party, from 7 p.m. to midnight on Saturday, Nov. 29, also has a new outdoor venue: Perez Art Museum near downtown Miami.

“We have hundreds of international visitors who come from Brazil and France and Israel and they want to be outside,” Welsh said. “They want to see the bay, they want to see the city, they want to see Miami.”

White Party is centerpiece of White Party Week, which runs during the Thanksgiving holiday from Nov. 26 through Dec. 1.

For more than 25 years, White Party was an early-evening soiree at Vizcaya Museum and Gardens popular with thousands of middle-age gay men.

In 2010, Miami-Dade County sought nearly $60,000 to rent Vizcaya for the 2011 event and Care Resource said no.

White Party moved to Miami Seaquarium, then to a club in Wynwood. The event also shifted from early evening to late night, hoping to attract thousands of young gay men in club attire.

Results were lackluster and this year Care Resource has decided to shift back to an early-evening party it hopes will attract a more diverse audience.

“Our goal is to bring in a larger spectrum of people from Miami,” said Steve Beko, Care Resource’s events coordinator. “White Party isn’t just an LGBT event, it’s a Miami event. Something our city can be proud of.”

White Party is centerpiece of White Party Week, which last year grossed nearly $600,000 for Care Resource. For decades, the agency has been known for HIV/AIDS care, but now also provides adult primary medical care, women’s healthcare, dental and pediatric care.

“We are a federally qualified health center,” Welsh said. “White Party Week grossed $592,425 in 2013 with 86 cents of every dollar going back towards programs and services offered to our South Florida community.”

Entertainment this year will be provided by a 30-piece White Party Symphony conducted by Miami musician Sam Hyken, along with a one-hour performance by DJ David Knapp.

Returning to White Party will be drag queen Elaine Lancaster, acting as emcee for the 16th year.

“Sixteenth year in a row. Can you believe it? I’m still here honey,” said Lancaster, who has done HIV/AIDS fundraisers since the early 1980s.

“AIDS is still important, still a crisis,” Lancaster said Thursday. “People are not even practicing safe-sex anymore because they don’t think it’s a crisis. What idiots!”

Miami/Fort Lauderdale is No. 1 nationally in new HIV/AIDS diagnoses, according to recent reports from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

“White Party started 30 years ago with an urgency to save lives,” Beko said. “It’s 30 years later and this pandemic is something that can be medically treated. But the urgency still exists because people are getting infected more and more in our community.”

ASSOCIATED PRESS

WASHINGTON -- Americans who oppose same-sex marriage often face "intolerance" from those who support it, Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida said Wednesday in a speech about values that appeared aimed at wooing social conservatives.

In remarks he said were likely to get him attacked as a bigot, the Florida Republican also complained to the audience at Catholic University about liberals who defend abortion rights for women but not protections for "the unborn."

While Rubio has consistently held conservative positions on abortion and gay marriage, his current emphasis appears to be an effort to appeal to social conservatives who have yet to settle on a favored candidate for 2016.

"Even before this speech is over, I will be attacked as someone who is a hater or a bigot," Rubio said.

Bernstein, an openly gay jurist, presides over Miami's Family Court as associate administrative judge. He will lead the organization, which provides training and education for the 599 Circuit Judges in the state of Florida and advocates for court funding and judicial administration.

Judge Bernstein becomes the only openly gay person to lead a statewide organization of judges. After his victory, Bernstein stated, "I am excited to serve the public in yet another role."

I began covering Bernstein 16 years ago, when he first ran for circuit court. Here's my July 1998 profile of Bernstein and his partner, former Miami-Dade Circuit Judge David Young.

GAY JUDGES: JUDGE US NOT BY SEXUALITY BUT QUALIFICATIONS

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

srothaus@MiamiHerald.com

Fall elections are approaching and gay political activists in Miami-Dade and Broward counties are busy supporting (and raising money for) their favorite candidates.

Dade ActionPac already has endorsed two openly gay candidates for judicial seats in Miami-Dade County: County Judge Victoria Sigler, who is running for re-election and Scott Bernstein, a civil-trial lawyer who hopes to become a Circuit Court judge.

Sigler made history four years ago when she became the first openly gay or lesbian person elected a judge in Florida, according to Dade ActionPac.

"She is truly an outstanding role model and judge, " according to the PAC's endorsement.

Sigler paved the way for other openly gay judges to serve in Florida: Mark King Leban became a Dade County judge in 1995; last year, Gov. Lawton Chiles appointed Robert Lee a Broward County judge.

"Scott Bernstein is trying to accomplish on the Circuit Court level what Victoria Sigler has on the County Court, " Dade ActionPac says, "to become the first openly gay or lesbian person to be elected a Circuit Court judge."

Bernstein, 38, says sexuality has nothing to do with being a good judge.

"I see it as a nonissue, " Bernstein says. "The community is mature enough to not think of that issue, but to think of the most qualified for the job . . . I don't go up to anybody and say, 'Vote for me because of this, that or the other thing.' I say, 'Vote for me because I'm qualified.' "

Still, if Bernstein is asked about being gay, he tells.

"Judges are not supposed to lie. No politician is supposed to lie, " he says. "I'm not sure that telling the truth -- how can that hurt? Isn't the lesson you learn from childhood that honesty is the best policy? There are people in this county who are not going to vote for me because I'm Jewish. There is nothing I can do about that. I'm not going to not say I'm Jewish.

"I'm not doing anything to prove a point. I'm not doing this to show people this can be done, " Bernstein says. "I have a genuine interest to improve the society in which we live."

Bernstein has spent nearly his entire life in South Florida. He graduated from Palmetto High in 1977, attended undergraduate school at Vanderbilt University in Nashville and law school at University of Florida.

About three years ago, Bernstein met Dade County Judge David Young at a law firm party and the two began to date. They have lived together for 2-1/2 years.

Young, 39, a former prosecutor and private criminal-trial lawyer, was elected to the bench in 1992. He now is a Dade Juvenile judge. Young says a person's sexuality "is irrelevant to being a judge.

"You want to be a role model, not just to a selected group. Judges should be role models for the entire community. Models for hard work and education.

"We have an obligation, all judges, to be involved in the community: Speaking before groups, especially in schools, is a wonderful way of getting the message across about right and wrong."

BY STEVE ROTHAUS

An appeals court declined on Wednesday to lift a stay of a Key West judge’s ruling that would have allowed same-sex couples to marry in Monroe County.

Key West bartenders Aaron Huntsman and William Lee Jones, who won permission last week from Monroe Chief Circuit Judge Luis Garcia to marry, had asked the appeals court to lift an automatic stay of the ruling that went into effect when the state appealed Garcia’s decision.

“We certainly believe this stay should be lifted,” said Bernadette Restivo, who represents Huntsman and Jones with law partner Elena Vigil-Fariñas. “Every day this same-sex marriage ban is in place, our clients and other couples like them throughout the state of Florida are irrevocably harmed and discriminated against by this unconstitutional ban.”

This was the men’s second attempt at lifting the stay. On Monday, Garcia, who declared Florida's 2008 gay-marriage ban unconstitutional, denied their first request.

In both the motion filed Monday with Garcia and the second Wednesday with the Miami-based Third District Court of Appeal, Restivo wrote: “The Plaintiffs and other same-sex couples who wish to marry are suffering serious, irreparable harms every day [Florida’s Marriage Protection Act] remains in effect.”

After Garcia's July 17 ruling, Florida Attorney General Pam Bondi swiftly announced she would appeal. Her office issued a statement saying that “with many similar cases pending throughout the entire country, finality on this constitutional issue must come from the U.S. Supreme Court.”

By filing the appeal notice, Bondi triggered the automatic stay in the case.

Garcia’s original decision that the men — and any other same-sex couple — should be allowed to marry applies only to Monroe County, because it was filed in front of a state judge who has jurisdiction only in the county where he sits. Miami-Dade County Circuit Judge Sarah Zabel has yet to rule in a similar case.

Huntsman and Jones, who met at a gay pride celebration and have been a couple for 11 years, sued Monroe County Clerk Amy Heavilin in April for a marriage license, saying Florida’s ban violates the U.S. Constitution’s equal protection clause.

The Monroe case mirrors the suit in Miami-Dade, in which six same-sex couples and LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida Institute sued County Clerk Harvey Ruvin for the right to marry. In both cases, Florida Assistant Attorney General Adam Tanenbaum argued that the judges should not dismiss Florida’s constitutional gay marriage ban, which passed in 2008 with the support of 62 percent of voters. The state, citing a 1972 U.S. Supreme Court ruling, contended that the definition of marriage belongs exclusively to the state and is exempt from federal scrutiny.

Nineteen states and Washington, D.C., have legalized same-sex marriages. Since a U.S. Supreme Court ruling last year that ordered the federal government to recognize those marriages, more than 20 cases have been won by gay-marriage advocates across America.

As attorney general of Florida, it’s a vital part of Pam Bondi’s job to enforce state laws and defend them in court. She can’t pick and choose only those she likes.

But she also has a duty to pay attention to changes in the law, and in the public attitudes that support those laws. The public expects elected officials to use their discretion when the situation demands it. Ms. Bondi has dutifully beseeched the courts to uphold Florida’s ban against gay marriage, but she lost the first round last week in a ruling by Monroe County Chief Circuit Judge Luis M. Garcia, who ordered the county clerk’s office to begin issuing marriage licenses to gay couples. More of the same may well follow.

The ruling has been stayed while the state appeals. Yet it should be increasingly clear that Ms. Bondi and officials in Tallahassee are swimming against the legal tide on the issue of gay marriage. Laws similar to Florida’s have been swept away in a wave of decisions around the country, with the rulings upheld by federal courts. It’s only a matter of time before this state’s statute similarly is found unconstitutional.

Last Friday, Oklahoma became the latest state to have a federal appeals court rule that its officials could not deny gay couples their “fundamental right” to wed. The same panel of judges for the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 10th Circuit had shortly before decided that Utah’s ban was also unconstitutional.

The rulings are the first at the federal appellate level since the U.S. Supreme Court changed the legal landscape by striking down the Defense of Marriage Act in June 2013.

The federal appellate rulings are likely to be appealed to the Supreme Court, but the handwriting’s on the wall. Same-sex marriage advocates have won more than 20 court victories around the country since the Supreme Court decision. Sooner or later gay marriage will be the rule rather than the exception everywhere, as it should be.

If there was a time when it was considered proper for the state to discriminate against gays, surely those days are long over. A Quinnipiac poll in April found that Florida voters support allowing same-sex couples to marry by a margin of 56 to 39 percent. Other recent polls show the same trend.

Thus, there is reason to believe public attitudes in Florida don’t support the gay-marriage ban. Second, there is no moral reason for Ms. Bondi to continue to pursue this case; it’s rank discrimination. Third, the legal underpinning of gay-marriage bans is rapidly being dismantled. And finally, in political terms, the issue is a loser as the state grows more accepting of gay marriage.

Ms. Bondi has fulfilled her duty by battling to support the law, but there’s a point beyond which it becomes futile to keep fighting it out in court. She should support the move to get the case before the state Supreme Court as quickly as possible to get a dispositive ruling and be done with it as soon as possible without further needless waste of state resources.